“The Decibel Penguin prize, an Arts Council initiative awarded to writers of ‘Asian, African and Caribbean background,’ has been forced to change its entry criteria after an intervention by the Commission for Racial Equality.”
Tag: 01.18.07
What Seattle’s Arts Museum Needs
The new Seattle Sculpture Park points up what’s lacking in the Seattle Art Museum. “As SAM got over its provincialism and opened its eyes to the bigger world of contemporary art, it turned its back on the local scene. Now, it’s time for the institution to take the next step in its maturation — and that means once again embracing who we are and what distinguishes the region.”
How To Smuggle Art Out Of Afganistan
“Diplomatic bags are being used to smuggle antiquities, both in Afghanistan and elsewhere, according to the Dutch researcher Jos van Beurden. In an unpublished paper, he has gathered anecdotal evidence suggesting that diplomatic privileges are regularly abused.”
Tintoretto No More (He’s Been Renamed)
“Spanish art historians have renamed one of Italy’s greatest painters. Specialists at the Prado have established that Tintoretto’s family name was Comin. This revelation will be presented at a major retrospective on Tintoretto (1519-94), which opens in Madrid on 29 January.”
Is Sundance Entering Its Awkward Phase?
Once it was an outsider. Now it is establishment. “With visitors now close to 40,000 each year, Sundance can no longer claim to be the brash young upstart on the film festival calendar. Moreover, while it can hardly rival the glamour – or indeed weather – of Cannes or Venice, it has no trouble attracting a similar calibre of celebrities.”
Chinese Reject Scorsese Film
The Chinse government distributor has rejected Martin Scorcese’s “The Departed” for showing in China. “After they watched it, they thought it wasn’t suited for the mainland Chinese market. They didn’t give concrete reasons.”
Sotheby’s Raises Its Commissions
“Previously the buyer’s commission was 20 percent on the first $200,000 bid at auction, and 12 percent on the balance of the total bid. Now buyers will be charged 20 percent on the first $500,000, or an additional $24,000, and 12 percent on the balance.”
A Brilliant Tokyo Museum Museum (With No Art Of Its Own)
The $289 million National Art Center is a looker. “If the museum looks like a lavish white elephant — another state building project planned in the dark days of the recession to help revive the economy — don’t be fooled. A savvy exhibition strategy, an innovative facility and enjoyable attractions may delight rather than drain the nation’s taxpayers, creating a new Mecca for Tokyo’s avid museum-goers.”
Seattle Sculpture Park – Walk Through 20th Century
“It ranges across a great variety of sculptural engagements, providing visitors with a walking tour through milestones in contemporary art history. Overall, the art is spare instead of packed, leaving room to rethink placement, to add and subtract over the years.”
Schwantner – Made In America
Joseph Schwantner has been chosen as the second commissioned composer for the Made in America” project in which 150 orchestras around America jointly commission a piece. “His as yet untitled work will be premiered in fall 2008, by the Reno (NV) Chamber Orchestra. Both Schwantner and [Joan] Tower [the project’s first composer] favor a mostly tonal, and in any case accessible, style of writing.”